Psychologists say being unable to find a job can change your personality

A
man waits in line to enter the NYCHires Job Fair in New
York.REUTERS/Shannon
Stapleton

Some eyebrow-raising research
presented at a recent conference suggests that young men
without college degrees are staying out of the workforce for one
major reason: They can live with Mom and Dad and play video games
all day.

According to the research, which was highlighted by Ana Swanson
in
The Washington Post, these men spend three-quarters of the
time they once spent working on the computer, mostly
playing video games. What's more, happiness among this group
has gone up in recent years.

This phenomenon has some negative implications, not solely
for the overall economy but also for the men's professional
future and even their health.

As Swanson pointed out, young men who stay out of the workforce
don't acquire the experience necessary to get jobs in their 30s
and 40s. As a result, Swanson writes, they might end up suffering
from depression and drug use, two things typically associated
with unemployment.

2015 research suggests there's one other issue at play here:
Unemployment can change your personality. Over time,
you may become less friendly, less hard-working, and less
open to new experiences.

The
study, which was conducted separately from the research on
unemployed young men playing video games, was led by Christopher
J. Boyce at the University of Stirling in Scotland.

Researchers drew data from the German Socio-Economic Panel,
focusing specifically on the experiences of a subset of
participants between 2005 and 2009. In 2005, all participants
were employed. 6,308 remained employed; 251 were unemployed and
then re-employed; and 210 were unemployed for one to four years.

Results showed that agreeableness, which is similar to
friendliness, decreased among both men and women during long-term
unemployment (one to four years). But during the first two years
of unemployment, men experienced increases in agreeableness.

The researchers can't say for sure why that gender difference
exists, but they suspect it's because men initially try to be
agreeable to cope with the situation and placate those around
them. Then they end up getting disheartened and agreeableness
decreases.

The study also indicated that conscientiousness, or the tendency
to be orderly and motivated, decreased among unemployed men and
women. Though he didn't test the theory, Boyce
believes this effect could be part of a vicious cycle: When
you're out of work, you become less conscientious, which then
makes it harder to find a new job.

A third major effect of long-term unemployment is that openness
generally decreases. While the researchers can't say exactly why
this happens, Boyce said it's possibly because "the idea of not
having a job weighs heavily on your psyche" and you may feel less
inspired and adventurous. Moreover, without a job, you may not
have the resources to go out and travel or explore your
neighborhood.

The
good news is that personality seems to rebound when you find work
again.PEO
ACWA/flickr

The bright spot amid these relatively dismal findings is that,
once you're re-employed,
personality seems to rebound. Boyce cautioned that he
and his coauthors need more data to verify whether that's true,
but it's what the current data implies.

It's important to note that the experience of any
individual unemployed person could differ completely
from the general picture that the study paints. What's
more, these findings on German adults might not apply across the
board, or specifically to unemployed young American men.

At the same time, the study has some important implications for
the way we think about unemployment.

For one, we should be careful about stigmatizing people who
are out of work. Instead of observing their unfavorable
personality traits and thinking, "This is why they can't find a
job," Boyce advises people to recognize that their personality
could be part of a "negative spiral." In other words,
unemployment leads to personality change, which in turn leads to
difficulty finding work.

Ultimately, these findings suggest that unemployment may be more
impactful than we're inclined to believe, in ways that we
wouldn't have imagined. That's a scary thought for all those
unemployed young men, and potentially another reason for those
who care about them to nudge them off the couch.